“Why can’t I speak that way?” my daughter asked, holding up Pride and Prejudice as though it contained the secret to a lost art.
Her words hung in the air, and I found myself thinking of Owen Barfield, who believed language wasn’t evolving but devolving—its intricate layers peeling away into something simpler, flatter, and less alive. Jane Austen’s sentences, like Elizabeth Bennet’s sparkling wit, remind us of what’s been lost: a world where language didn’t just describe but transformed, where words pulled us into the story rather than leaving us outside.
Share this post